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Runner (Jane Whitefield #6)

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 897 ratings · 150 reviews

Jane Whitefield---New York Times bestselling writer Thomas Perry's most popular character---returns from retirement to the world of the runner, guiding fugitives out of danger.

MP3 Book, Unabridged, 0 pages

Published February 27th 2009 by Tantor Media, Inc. (first published January 1st 2009)

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Feb 11, 2009 Jeffrey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Thriller fans, Jane Whitfield fans

Shelves: read-in-2009, thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Jane Whitfield is the wife of a surgeon living on the outskirts of Buffalo, when a young pregnant girl Christine Monahan asks her for help at a hospital charity function, which has just been interrupted by a bombing. Christine believes that the bombing was meant to draw her into the open and she is right.

It turns out that Whitfield has made a career as a sort of underground railroad, helping people who need to escape a perilous situation. People who she helped have her phone number and send vic...more

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Mar 05, 2009 KarenC rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like suspense books & strong female characters

Shelves: better_than_tv, suspense

I was very happy to see the return of Jane Whitefield. This is the one character and series by Thomas Perry that I really enjoy. The plot creates an almost constant tension from the very first chapter. Perry's portrayal of Jane has been consistent and just terrific throughout the series. She is an admirable character with great courage, strength, and self-reliance. I'm not always as pleased with the people Jane helps "out of the world," although if I remember correctly they all deserved to be he...more

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Jan 30, 2009 Ingeborg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I love this series about Jane Whitefield. I thought Thomas Perry had retired that character - but no, she's back! As good as ever. A really good read.

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May 13, 2013 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, books-set-in-california, books-set-in-minnesota, books-set-in-new-york, fiction, mysteries

It's been quite a while since I read the previous entries in the Jane Whitefield series. In Runner, Jane has taken on a new case five years after her retirement to the quiet life of a doctor's wife. When a pregnant girl asks for her help, Jane, who's been worried about her and her husband's failure to conceive, can't help but assist her to escape those who are seeking her.
Jane must deal with 21st century technology and the increased security that followed 9/11. When things start to go sour, it's...more

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May 08, 2011 Keith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For the first one hundred and fifty pages or so “Runner” is more like a stroll. I mean it begins with a bang and people are in motion but I don’t know who any of them are and so I don’t really care. Jane Whitefield is an upper-middle class doctor’s wife, living a normal doctor’s wife life, whatever that is, when she realizes that she must revert to her secret life as a “guide”. As a guide, she helps people who are in grave danger and have no other option than to change their identity and disappe...more

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Dec 22, 2010 James Thane rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In a series of five books, published from the mid- to late-1990s, Thomas Perry detailed the adventures of Jane Whitefield, a tough, clever, contemporary Native American woman who lived in western New York. Jane came to the rescue of people who were in serious trouble, guiding them out of their old lives and into new ones. In the process, she almost always had to help her clients to escape from brutal thugs who were hot on the trail. This usually put both Jane and her client in mortal danger and...more In a series of five books, published from the mid- to late-1990s, Thomas Perry detailed the adventures of Jane Whitefield, a tough, clever, contemporary Native American woman who lived in western New York. Jane came to the rescue of people who were in serious trouble, guiding them out of their old lives and into new ones. In the process, she almost always had to help her clients to escape from brutal thugs who were hot on the trail. This usually put both Jane and her client in mortal danger and demanded that Jane use all of her wits and considerable physical skills to disable or eliminate the bad guys. Along the way, Jane created a new identity for the client and taught him or her how to survive in a new life.

Jane finally retired, married a doctor, and created a happy, fulfilling new life for herself, flawed only by her inability to conceive a child. Now, five years after her last adventure (nine years in real time), a pregnant young girl turns up at the hospital where Jane's husband works in Buffalo. The girl is looking for Jane, but only knows her maiden name, which the hospital staff does not recognize.

Coincidentally, Jane is heading a fundraiser at the hospital that evening, and in the middle of the soiree, a bomb goes off, interrupting the festivities. Jane and the young girl are thrown together in the confusion and it turns out that the bomb has been set by a team of hunters who have been hired to capture the girl and return her and her baby to the girl's abusive boyfriend and his seriously weird parents.

Naturally, Jane will have to come out of retirement and help the poor woman escape. She quickly discovers that because of technological advances, it's a lot harder--and a lot more expensive--to create a new identity for someone in the post-9/11 era. If that's not bad enough, Jane also discovers that the crew in pursuit of her new client is easily the toughest group of adversaries that she has ever faced.

The result is a book that begins, literally, with a bang and continues to move at a breakneck pace from start to finish. As always, it’s fun to watch Jane work, and it’s particularly interesting to see the details of how she creates a new identity for Christine, the woman she’s assisting. Inevitably, perhaps, Christine will make the exercise a lot more difficult than it otherwise might have been, but this simply means more fun for the reader who gets to watch Jane react to the added threat.

This book does require the suspension of some disbelief. For example, even after being out of the business for several years, Jane seems to have a huge supply of fake identities put away, along with an inexhaustible stash of hundred dollar bills hidden in her basement. Without them, the book would come to a pretty abrupt halt on about page three.

Readers who have waited not-so-patiently for Perry to resurrect Jane Whitefield will be very happy to have her back. But those who’ve never read this series and who have missed all of the backstory might be better off starting with the first book in the series, Vanishing Act, and working their way forward. They won’t be disappointed and, unlike the rest of us, they won’t have to wait nine years to get to Runner.

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May 12, 2009 Kayeb rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have enjoyed this series as well. I found myself being concerned for Jane, after having been out of the hiding people business for so long... and experiencing a sense of implausibility that she is still in the physical condition etc to return to her work so effectively. I didn't look up when the last book in the series was published, but don't think it was as long ago as it is in the book. I have mixed feelings about the ending.....clearly it sets the stage for another book, but I also found m...more I have enjoyed this series as well. I found myself being concerned for Jane, after having been out of the hiding people business for so long... and experiencing a sense of implausibility that she is still in the physical condition etc to return to her work so effectively. I didn't look up when the last book in the series was published, but don't think it was as long ago as it is in the book. I have mixed feelings about the ending.....clearly it sets the stage for another book, but I also found myself just wanting her to be able to indeed, go back to her life and have a kid (the stage is being set that that won't happen) and get out of these dangerous situations. An unusual response in some ways, as I generally am rooting for the next of a series I like to come out! But........ Jane is also going through mixed feelings, so perhaps it is part of the author's artistry!

[close:] Jane Whitefield—New York Times best-selling writer Thomas Perry's most popular character—returns from retirement to the world of the runner, guiding fugitives out of danger.

After a nine-year absence, the fiercely resourceful Native American guide Jane Whitefield is back, in the latest superb thriller by award-winning author Thomas Perry.
For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: "I'm a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is." Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she's made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. And her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that will be a rescue operation—or a chance for revenge.
Runner is Thomas Perry at the top of his form. [close:] (less)

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Apr 09, 2009 LJ rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary_post_1945, male_author, suspense

First Sentence: The girl kept half-turning in the back seat to stare out the rear window of the cab, as though she were being chased across Buffalo to the hospital.

In the past 10 years, Jane Whitefield no longer helps people in need disappear from their lives. She has married and is living with her husband, Dr. Carey McKinnon in Buffalo New York. Organizing a fund raiser at the hospital, Jane feeling that something is wrong is proved correct when an explosion occurs.

A young, very pregnant, woma...more

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Jul 01, 2010 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thomas Perry does one thing, and he does it better than anybody else. He is a master of the paranoid thriller--where an innocent person finds him or herself up against legions of deadly, unstoppable bad guys. He has created a whole series of "Jane Whitefield" novels--in which the heroine is a Senecan woman who helps people in just this situation to "disappear." She is her own witness protection program, and she only succeeds by relentlessly outsmarting and out-toughing the bad guys. This is the...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first read of a Thomas Perry book and I quite enjoyed it. The main character in this series is Jane Whitefield. Jane is of Seneca background and has helped several people over the years escape from situations and establish new lives. This novel begins at the hospital where her husband works. A young pregnant girl has arrived looking for Jane, using a name as referral that Jane knows from her previous work.
As Jane and her new charge, Christine, run from those after Christine, they find themsel...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Sophie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 30, 2010 Alecia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't know how to describe Thomas Perry's writing. Maybe cool and removed? I always feel as if he's going to break into this emotional lapse and really get into his main character's head. But he never does, and I've read most,if not all of his Jane Whitefied books. I think it would be actually a 2.5 rating. Jane is a person who hides people who are running from bad people. She's got all kinds of tricks up her sleeve and observes everything around her meticulously in order to survive and help t...more

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Mar 10, 2009 Laura de Leon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, audiobook

I finished listening to this book today (I downloaded it from Audible).

Things I liked:

I really wanted to come back to reading this each time I stopped. I liked revisiting Jane Whitefield and seeing how her life had changed. She seemed to mature in a fairly realistic way. This book examined the consequences to her life in a more thorough way than I remember from previous books (although it has been years, my memory is fuzzy).

I found the "runner" in this book to be a frustratingly realistic char...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Found another series I would love to follow. I hope the previous Jane Whitefield novels are as good as this one.
Jane Whitefield comes out of retirement when a pregnant young woman shows up on her doorstep (actually at the hospital where she is a volunteer). Christine is running from a group of killers sent by her boyfriend to bring her back to San Diego. The group bombs the hospital so that they can capture her when she comes running out, but Jane surprises them by outsmarting the group and lea...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, thriller, native-american, california, new-york, suspense, minnesota, domestic-violence

Pretty clever and entertaining suspense tale featuring Jane Whitefield, a Seneca Indian in Upstate New York who helps people disappear from dangerous situations, assume new identities, and acquire survival skills. Here she is pulled out of retirement from this service by a runaway 20-year old who is six weeks pregnant. She is escaping from a complex domestic violence situation in which her future baby has special value to her boy has special value to her real estate boyfriend and boss in San Die...more

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Sep 11, 2010 Nancy Yamaguchi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 07, 2011 DWGibb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jane Whitfield, a Native-American guide for people who need to disappear for their own safety, is back after a nine-year hiatus. This time the "runner" is a young girl who is pregnant. As a reader, I am learning the personal sacrifice needed for a runner to succeed in becoming undiscoverable. The tricks of the disappearance trade are similar to those of a spy, who must assume a false identity and assimilate into a totally alien culture. Jane knows all the tricks and seems to have a bottomless so...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Ellen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this on the new fiction shelf at the library, and so started with the 6th book of the series. I enjoyed this one the most, having gone back and read the series in order.

The main character is very intriguing. Jane Whitefield, of Seneca Indian heritage, helps people to "disappear" by issuing them new identities and guiding them to a location where they can live safely under their new identity. Of course, there are many exciting chase scenes, and Jane is always employing her athletic and sp...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Susan Katz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, native-american, favorites

A new Jane Whitefield book after a nine-year hiatus is something to celebrate. I really like this series, enough to have reread most of them while I was waiting for a new one. I enjoy the twists of Perry's plotting, and I always like books where the protagonist needs to keep coming up with moves to counter new dangers and difficulties. I also like the fact that Jane Whitefield is Seneca, which permits the novelist to incorporate some Indian lore, and that she is a smart, capable woman who handil...more

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Mar 05, 2009 Mary added it · review of another edition

Shelves: suspense-thriller

Jane is back! I love this series, but when Perry last wrote one, the Internet wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now. It was easier for Jane to create false identities for her clients, and easier for them to stow away under the radar. Now everything links us together, and her task is much harder this time. She has to be more harsh in her actions, and she is more divided - before she was single, and now she must leave a comfortable life to help a young woman escape a dangerous situation. Jane in actio...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Victoria rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(My mind is going...this book was already on my list twice but, honest, I just read it today.) It's been about a decade since Perry wrote a Jane Whitefield novel and the previews I'd read said this was a disappointment. I didn't find it to be but the world has certainly changed radically in that time and giving people new lives, as Jane does, is certainly more difficult now. I don't know if it's sensible to try to continue the series because of those hindrances but this book's ending certainly l...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Sgkagan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thomas Perry's latest thriller, Runner returns to Jane Whitfield, the Native American anti-detective who helps people escape their dangerous lives and disappear. Escapism, in its purest since.

Perry is admired for his Metzger's Dog and The Butcher's Boy which rank on many Mystery Top 100s. The Jane Whitfield series is more of pleasant diversion; true Escapism.

I bought this in hardcover: that is how happy I am to see a new Thomas Perry book. The great and famed Otto Penzler serves as editor and p...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: perry, reviewed

In the sixth book of the Jane Whitefield series, and the first one to take place after 9/11, the rules of the game have changed. The game is simple: Jane takes people out of harm's way and places them safely, far away and under another name. She promised her husband to stop, and kept her promise for several years. But when a bomb goes off in his hospital and a pregnant girl tells Jane it was meant to flush her out, Jane grabs the girl and sets out on another mission. She's older, airport securit...more In the sixth book of the Jane Whitefield series, and the first one to take place after 9/11, the rules of the game have changed. The game is simple: Jane takes people out of harm's way and places them safely, far away and under another name. She promised her husband to stop, and kept her promise for several years. But when a bomb goes off in his hospital and a pregnant girl tells Jane it was meant to flush her out, Jane grabs the girl and sets out on another mission. She's older, airport security is tighter, people recognize her from long ago...the stakes are higher for Jane. The stakes are pretty high for Christine, too - she's fleeing a man who is more than just abusive, who has the money to hire half a dozen people to bring her back. Things go relatively well at first, but Christine is too young and inexperienced to see every possibility for danger and is caught. Jane has never believed in revenge, but as she has struggled with childlessness, Christine's plight triggers an empathic response and she goes all out to rescue mother and child. This isn't the best book of the series for several reasons. First, Thomas Perry retired Jane years ago. I don't know why he chose to resurrect her, but his earlier passion seems to have diminished. The details of running, hiding and building new identities are somewhat perfunctory. His interest now appears to be Jane's midlife crisis: she always thought her mother had chosen to be happy and that if she followed her mother's path, she would be happy, too. But she realizes that she has a calling that she has suppressed, and may have been hiding behind the shadow of the doctor's wife. The emphasis on her desire to be a mother doesn't really ring true. There was never any sign in the previous five books that she had any such yearning. In fact, her marriage seems more like a business arrangement than a passionate attachment. What makes this book worth reading is that the plotting is good, as always, and it's clear that Jane is back in the game. The seventh book is being released in March 2012, and it will be interesting to see if Jane finds her feet again as a guide, or realizes that part of her life is truly over.(less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Karen added it · review of another edition

Thank you, Thomas Perry, for bringing Jane out of retirement! Will Jane ever be able to say "No" to someone who seeks her help? Probably not. Helping people disappear will not get any easier, either. I just hope Mr. Perry has a few more stories to tell before Jane makes a mistake that will end the series!

I have enjoyed this entire series and this book was no exception. Some of the happenings - you could see them a mile away. But all in all, I enjoyed the book and will anxiously await the next.

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Apr 23, 2011 Adrienne Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The final novel in the Jane Whitefield series (so far)...

Jane McKinnon has been retired and living happily as Mrs. Jane McKinnon, moving on with a normal life and wanting desperately to have a child of her own. She's attending a successful hospital fund raiser when her old instints spring back to life telling her something is "wrong". Second later a bomb goes off and while helping the injured she suddenly comes face to face with her next "runner"...a young woman who is obviously pregnant and des...more

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Jan 24, 2009 Corny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers

I was disappointed by the latest Jane Whitefield. Perry seems to have exhausted most of the material for this protagonist and should move on. There were moments where the action was fast paced and well plotted but there were too many pages of introspective nonsense that simply act as filler until the next action moments. What Jane is thinking every moment is not that compelling. Perry's best work seems to be behind him. Butcher's Boy and Metzger's Dog were terrific. This one just does not measur...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Mahrie Glab rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jane is a character I fell in love with a book or two back. Finding this latest (I think) episode in her life was a happy accident. Jane helps people disappear and leads characters and readers through an underlife of new identities, danger and new found opportunity. A woman who can kill if need be might seem extreme but Perry balances her dangerous side with her overwhelming desire to be a normal wife to her surgeon husband and her yearning for a baby. Hope there are more Jane Whitefield books t...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Renee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, read-in-2012

Good, tightly woven story, though there were moments when it felt a little too "Dirty Harry-ish" for my taste –especially, since that isn't really consistent with Jane's character as established in previous books in the series. I'm also a little tired of the same premise WRT to her husband: she promises him that each case is the "last one" and keeps it –until the next person comes along. However, it was still an entertaining listen, and kept me glued to my earphones till I finished it late last...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A new Jane Whitefield book, after a long time (since Jane had retired and married in the last book). But she is back at work, teaching people in danger to run and hide and make themselves over, her own private witness protection service. Jane is Native America, the culture runs through her. She is smart, because Perry's writing is smart and compelling. While most of the mystery series I once loved have grown stale and dull, at least to me, this one holds up. And it's clear from the last page tha...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Dot added it · review of another edition

This was my first Jane Whitefield book, picked up at random in the library so I would have something to read - I considered it a good page-turner of a summer read. Being from upstate New York, I enjoyed the setting there, and also the mystical nature of things Seneca. Although fiction, I think there is a realistic look at a whole underbelly of society - forgers, guides, runners, hunters - that most of us would have no experience with. After reading some of the other reviews of this book, I feel...more

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About Thomas Perry

Thomas Perry was born in Tonawanda, New York in 1947. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rochester in 1974. He has worked as a park maintenance man, factory laborer, commercial fisherman, university administrator and teacher, and a writer and producer of prime time network television shows. He lives in Southern California with his wife...more

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Dance for the Dead (Jane Whitefield, #2)

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Runner (Jane Whitefield #6)

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